Do you have a morning routine? There’s a reason why so many successful midlife women are intentional about how they start their day. Simply put, morning routines are an intentional way to start a successful and productive day.
Morning routines vary wildly, from the amount of time spent to the activities that make up the morning routine. What's also interesting: what works for one woman may not work for another. What seems to be universal, though, is that morning routines help midlife women set positive intentions and strong foundations early in the day, which helps them run their day instead of letting the day run them.
Mentions:
Hal Elrod, Miracle Morning
Shad Helmstetter, PhD, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself
Laurie Reynoldson, The BEST LIFE Daily Planner + Habit Tracker
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👉 CONNECT WITH LAURIE:
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Do you have a morning routine? There’s a reason why so many successful midlife women are intentional about how they start their day. Simply put, morning routines are an intentional way to start a successful and productive day.
Morning routines vary wildly, from the amount of time spent to the activities that make up the morning routine. What's also interesting: what works for one woman may not work for another. What seems to be universal, though, is that morning routines help midlife women set positive intentions and strong foundations early in the day, which helps them run their day instead of letting the day run them.
Mentions:
Hal Elrod, Miracle Morning
Shad Helmstetter, PhD, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself
Laurie Reynoldson, The BEST LIFE Daily Planner + Habit Tracker
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟RATE THIS PODCAST:
https://ratethispodcast.com/schoolofmidlife
📩 JOIN MY MAILING LIST
https://www.schoolofmidlife.com/the-weekly-best-life-list-sign-up
👉 CONNECT WITH LAURIE:
📩 Email Laurie
On Instagram
On LinkedIn
Work with Laurie
I know that morning routines are definitely having a moment right now. It seems like everywhere you read about them, people are trying them. They include getting up early and drinking the perfect green smoothie and dialing in on the perfect workout. Ah, but I got to say. I don't think there is any such thing as a perfect morning routine. And I certainly don't think you need to have one to be successful in life. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm Laurie Reynoldson, former award-winning attorney turned high performance coach for midlife women. I designed this podcast is your go-to place for weekly midlife inspiration, where I'll be sharing, inspiring stories, providing step-by-step actionable coaching and introducing you to some incredible women who are absolutely crushing it at the midlife game. And you'd better believe we'll also be having candid conversations about mid-life relationships, career moves, money, menopause, and so much more. So take out your reading glasses and notebooks. My friends, because the School of Midlife is in session. Hey there friends. Welcome back to today's episode of the school of mid-life podcast. Today. We're talking about morning routines and why you absolutely should have one. I received an email from a listener in response to last week's episode on work-life balance. If you haven't already listened to that, you should go back and take a listen. And also, this is a good reminder that you can absolutely email me questions about what you hear in episodes. Or if you have talk topics that you'd like to hear in the future, I'd love to hear from you. Just send me a DM, send me an email. There will be a link to my email in the show notes. Anyway, this email came from Sarah. Sarah writes. My biggest issue with work-life balance is I'm literally already behind as soon as I get up in the morning. Getting the kids to school running from meeting to meeting at work, grabbing groceries on the way home to make dinner before heading back to a kid's game or piano recital. It feels like I'm always running and reacting to everything that comes at me all day long. How can I find any sort of balance in my life if I can't even find any moments in my day to just be? Man. Isn't that a great question. I mean, we've all been there. Haven't we. Where it just feels like life is coming at us in this sort of unrelenting way. Almost like we're drowning and we can't quite get above water. So I completely understand what you mean, Sarah. When you say you feel like you're already behind, as soon as you get up in the morning and you're just spending your day running from here to there to the next thing. It's so hard to find any balance when there really aren't any moments just for ourselves. Isn't it. And that's where I think a morning routine could potentially help you out. I know that morning routines are definitely having a moment right now. It seems like everywhere you read about them, people are trying them. They include getting up early and drinking the perfect green smoothie and dialing in on the perfect workout. Ah, but I got to say. I don't think there is any such thing as a perfect morning routine. And I certainly don't think you need to have one to be successful in life. If you're not familiar with morning routines, they have been publicized pretty significantly since the publishing of Hal Elrod's book called"Miracle Mornings". I've read the book. It's great. It's a great read. I would highly recommend it. If you want to pick up a copy I'll link it in the show notes for you. Hal Elrod's approach is there are six steps to creating a morning routine, which he calls his life savers. And savers is an acronym for SS, for silence. A is for affirmations. V is for visualization. E is for exercise. R is for reading and S is for scribing. Scribing meeting, writing, but. The S for scribing seems to fit the. The acronym better than a w. So what, Hal Elrod champions is, if you take an hour in your morning, And you go through the six step morning routine. So the lifesavers. Then you will have a great foundation and you'll establish it early in the day. it's a great starting point for your day. For me while I have a morning routine, I don't use Hal Elrod's six step morning routine. My routine is simpler than Hal's. Um, I'll talk about that in a bit, but for me, I find that I like having a morning routine because I'm able to start my day with a little more intention. I feel less reactive. It's it's almost like it's weirdly calming for me because it's almost like I'm on autopilot. It's that same repetition. Like, I don't really have to think about what I'm doing in the morning. I just get up. And I do it. And I've been doing it long enough that it has just become automatic. And because it's this healthy mix of some contemplate of time and also establishing a foundation for healthy habits for the day and just some sort of menial tasks that aren't hard for me to complete my morning routine is a reminder to me that I can complete things that I say I'm going to do. And it sets up this beautiful foundation. For me to have a great day. Again, all talk a little bit more in depth about my morning routine looks like in just a bit, but. First let's talk about why morning routines might be getting a bad rap. I mean, on the one hand, we know that they can set you up for having a good day set you up for success. But there are some detractors as well. For instance. Many people believe that in order to be successful in any endeavor, just successful life, you have to get up early in the morning that if you have a morning routine, It has to start very, very early, like before four 30 in the morning. And there's almost this cult-like messaging that if you don't get up that early, then you cannot be successful. I will 100% say that I do not buy that. I do not stand by that at all. I mean, I'm not getting up in the fours unless I'm traveling and have an early plane to catch. So the idea for me that. I'm just going to get up. I'm just going to set my alarm for four 30. And be up before everyone else in the house, just so that I can be One of the cool kids. That, that approach doesn't work for me. I I think another thing we need to think about here is sleep. Sleep is so important for midlife women. So, if you're getting up in the fours, then you better damn well be going to bed before nine o'clock each night. Because you need that seven or eight hours of sleep. Even if you think you can get by with less sure you can get by, with less sleep for a short amount of time. But it's not sustainable. So if we're looking for lots of ways in our life to establish healthy habits that we're going to service in the longterm. Then getting eight hours of sleep should be at near the very top of that list. Which means. Don't be getting up at four 30 in the morning, just because you heard someone or someone told you that that's the only way that you can be successful. That it's the only way that you're going to set yourself up for a good day. That's that's wrong. If you want to get up early. Cool. If you want to get up early before everyone else in your family wakes up so that you have some devoted time to yourself, well, that's, that's great too. But don't do it just because you read somewhere that it might be a good thing to try if it works for you, keep it. If not adjusted so that it actually works for your lifestyle. Another thing the morning routine doesn't have to be. Is. This idea. There's so many people that say don't use your phone before 8:00 AM. And honestly, I, I aspire to this, but I haven't found that it serves me well. And here's why. A lot of people will keep their phone out of the bedroom. And I understand that it's a good practice to not be doom, scrolling, social media or the news before you go to bed. You know, the, I understand how the blue light works against your circadian rhythm. It wakes up your brain waves, all sorts of scientifically backed studies. Say that spending a bunch of time on your phone before you go to bed. Is going to be at least slightly disruptive to your sleep, if not significantly disruptive to your sleep. So I understand why I shouldn't have my phone in my bedroom. But I use my phone as my alarm clock. I also use it to listen to a sleep meditation on my Peloton app every night before I go to bed. So my phone is in my bedroom. What I don't do in the morning when my alarm goes off is pick up my phone. And start checking emails. And spending a bunch of time in my inbox because I don't want someone else's priorities to then become my own priorities. First thing in the morning. I will admit that my alarm goes off and I do pick up my phone and. The first thing I do is I do the Wordle every morning. As soon as my alarm goes off. And then I'm learning French with my duo lingo app. So I do a couple of exercises on Duolingo. First ID Wordle, then I do my Duolingo And then I respond to any texts that have come in after the notifications on my phone have been silenced. If you don't know how to do that, all of your phones, if you go to the settings, there is a silencing mode that you can put your phone in so that it won't ring and you won't receive texts after a certain time. For me, that's 10 o'clock. So you, of course can change that time based on when you go to sleep. But if I have received texts that have come in. After I've gone to bed or after my phone has gone into sleep mode. I won't respond to those until the morning. So I. I do use my phone before 8:00 AM, even though. They say whoever they are, they say I shouldn't do it. I shouldn't pick up my phone or use it before 8:00 AM. Again, I don't use it to check the news or respond to emails in my inbox. I think that there are ways that you can use your phone as a tool and it doesn't need to necessarily set you in that reactive. I have to take action mode. I have to respond to someone's urgent. Message to me or all of a sudden, whatever they've been putting off is now on my plate and I have to deal with it. There are ways that I use my phone before 8:00 AM that aren't going to create that additional level of anxiety or reaction, or just stressful morning. Also there's this idea that your morning routine. Has to be the same every single day. I do believe that there is something important and relevant about having the same elements in your morning routine. And having those elements repeat themselves. But frankly for me every day is different. Because some days I have early meetings. So if I approach my morning routine, as I had this very regimented schedule where say, I would always spend 20 minutes meditating and then 20 minutes exercising and then 20 minutes reading the news. Well, what happens if I have to be. In the office by seven o'clock or I've got an early morning flight. And I have this very regimented morning routine. Instead of this routine that tells me I have to spend 20 minutes doing this and then 20 minutes doing that. And then 20 minutes doing this other thing. I like a morning routine that is more flexible in the amount of time I'm going to devote to any portion of it. So if say those three things. Meditating exercising, reading the news were part of my morning routine. I want to be flexible enough to change the amount of time I am devoting to each of those. Pieces of my morning routine, So that the morning routine. Is effective for me. It could look like this. even though I have an early morning meeting. I'm going to spend five minutes meditating today. I still want to get outside for my 20 minute walks. So I'm going to spend five minutes meditating, 20 minutes exercising, and then I'm going to catch up on the news while I'm getting ready for work. So you can see how I still have all of the elements of my morning routine. I've just changed them up a little bit. So that they actually worked for me on that day. it's also important. to think about. The way that you. Talk to yourself about your morning routine. Any time you tell yourself. That you have to do something every single day. You're just setting yourself up for failure. And what I mean by that is if something happens in your schedule, Then you literally cannot do the exact same thing every day. There's there's just no wiggle room. There's no ability to change based on circumstances or things that pop up. So, instead of saying, you're going to do all the things every day. Shoot for 80% here, just like. You know, I talked. Um, on an earlier podcast, about my year of good enough, we don't have to have an A- plus day every day to have a meaningful morning routine. Shoot for 80%. Hell, shoot for 70%. Just make sure that you are doing a little bit of that morning routine every single day to build that foundation for yourself. It doesn't have to be perfect every day. In fact, you know, a morning routine is more about starting the day with a positive mindset. Not beating yourself up for not keeping the promises to yourself. So we don't want. This idea that the morning routine is just one more thing that we're going to fail at, or one more thing that we're not going to be able to accomplish. That's not the point of the morning routine. You want to create this foundation where you can start your day intentionally. You can start your day with a positive mindset. You can limit this frenetic reactionary energy, first thing in the morning. Because you've got a plan and you're going to follow through with it. So getting back to Sarah's question, I definitely think you'll feel less reactionary. Less, how can I do all of this when I don't even have any moments in my day, just to be by myself. You can do that. If you carve out some time in the morning and you're intentional about how you start your morning. So with the morning routine, I promise you you're going to feel less like you're in the frenetic reactionary mode. Especially first thing in the morning. So now let's jump to my morning routine. I'm sharing this as an example of how easy it can be for you to create a morning routine. How it doesn't have to be time-consuming. It doesn't have to be difficult. It doesn't have to be full of difficult or time-consuming action to be effective. My alarm goes off. I do the Wordle. I do my Duolingo, and then I respond to any texts that I have received during the night. then I drink whatever is left in the water bottle on my nightstand. Every night, I take a 26 ounce water bottle to bed with me. Um, I fill it up each night before I go to bed. I know that in order to reach my hydration goals of about a gallon of water every day, I have to drink five of these 26 ounce water bottles. So right before I go to bed, I fill it up and I take it to bed with me. That way. If I get thirsty during the night, I can take a sip from my water bottle. So in the morning I drink, whatever is left in the water bottle, which is a great way to start rehydrating my body. In the morning. Because as soon as we wake up, we're essentially in a state of dehydration because we haven't been consuming any hydration. While we're asleep. Plus. If you're someone who struggles to get in enough water, this is a perfect way. To start your day. I mean, I haven't even gotten out of bed when I drink my first 26 ounces of water. So I am already 20% of the way towards meeting my goal, my hydration goal for the day, and I haven't even gotten out of bed. So that's pretty cool. Right. Plus it is laying the foundation that. First thing in the morning, I'm already working on healthy habits. I'm telling my brain that healthy habits are important to me. So I'm going to work on them starting first thing in the morning, and I'm going to work on them all day long. Once I finished my water bottle, then I get up and I make my bed. Every single morning. I make my bed as a gift to my future self. When my future self gets ready to go to bed. After a long day at work, she's going to be much, much happier to walk into a bedroom with a bed that is made and looks ready and inviting to get into. Versus she's worked all day, comes into the bedroom and they're just blankets and sheets just strewn about everywhere on the bed. That's not inviting. It just looks messy. So I make my bed in the morning. Not only as a gift to my future self. But also to prove to myself, very first thing in the morning that I finished projects. I am somebody who starts a project and sees it through to completion. And it doesn't matter that making my bed is super easy. There's a sheet, a blanket, a comforter, a duvet cover. of course there are a bunch of throw pillows, but it takes, I don't know, maybe two minutes to make the bed. Once I'm out of bed and the bed is made. I go to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and then I immediately change into my workout clothes. Because the very next thing I'm going to do. Is I'm going. To go out for a walk. Every single day. And again, by going on this walk every single day. I'm telling myself that healthy habits are important to me. I'm. Starting this day by implementing healthy habits. Very first thing in the morning. It used to be that I would walk by myself without any music or any distractions. I found it to be very meditative. But I've changed the way that I use my walks in the morning. Now I take Theo and he loves it just as much as I do. And I use my walk time to listen to podcasts. I found that I really liked that because it gets my brain working and just these ideas popping first thing in the morning. There's something about that walk that is super grounding for me. I never miss it. I refuse to miss it in the morning because it's simply just a part of what I do in the morning. That doesn't mean that the length of my walk doesn't change every day, depending on what else is on my schedule. Sometimes it's a 10 minute walks. Sometimes it's a two hour hike. It doesn't really matter how long it is to me, whatever length of walk it is. It's just this beautiful time for ideation and reflection and just getting the blood moving in the morning. Stretching my legs a little bit. Getting outside, breathing in some fresh air. Yep. That's the other thing I walk outside every day. You could walk on a treadmill if you want. But I got to tell you there's something about being outside. Even when it's snowing, even when it's pouring down rain, even when it's 95 degrees outside. There's something about being outside that serves to ground me and start my day on the right foot. Pun intended. So. I finished the water bottle. I make my bed. I go to bathroom. I brush my teeth. I go out for my walk every single day in that order. When I get back. This is where. Hell L rod would be happy with when I kind of do this affirmation slash visualization work in the morning. And I call it my morning, 5, 10, 5. The morning 5, 10, 5 is my list of. Five things I'm grateful for 10 dreams. I achieved. Five things I'm looking forward to today. I created the morning 5, 10, 5, because I don't personally do well with affirmations. It's like my brain doesn't believe things to be true by me. Just telling myself that they're true. What I mean by that is if I stand in front of the mirror and I tell myself before I am heading into a presentation or a big meeting, I am the strongest, most confident woman. I know. It doesn't matter how many times I say it or how emphatically I say it, but when I say it over and over again, looking in the mirror. If. I don't believe it for myself. If my brain doesn't actually believe that I'm the strongest, most confident woman. The affirmation doesn't land. It's like, I'm trying to talk myself into being this strong, confident woman. But my brain doesn't believe it. So instead of using affirmations, I created the morning 5, 10, 5. It is my way of doing affirmations and visualizations. Every morning. You can use any piece of paper, any journal you have just grab your favorite pen, but make sure you're doing this with a pen and paper. Because it's going to seed this information in your brain on a deeper level than if you just make a digital list on your phone. So, whatever you have to write on. actually the morning 5, 10, 5 is part of my best life daily planner and habit tracker. In addition to the morning, 5, 10, 5, the planner has all of the other daily systems that I've used to pay off all my debt before the age of 50. Um, I've earned promotions at work, train for and compete in. Well, I don't know if compete is the right word, but how about train and complete endurance events like marathons and a half iron man and the EverString 29 0 2 9 hiking endurance event. So it's got all of these daily systems that I have used to be successful in my life. My top three daily to do's. It has a Sunday, 10 minute planning session. There's an area for tracking best life habits. All of these things in the best life, daily planner and habit tracker. There's a link to the planner in the show notes. If you want to grab your coffee, but you don't need anything special to write on for the morning, 5, 10, 5, you just need a piece of paper, any piece of paper, any journal will do and to pet. And the morning 5, 10, 5 looks like this. You start with five things. You're grateful for. Always start with gratitude. It can be big things that you're grateful for, like your promotion at work or your husband. I don't know, purchases a lovely vacation getaway to celebrate your anniversary next month. Or it could be. Last night, you had a fantastically fun girls night out. Big things, big experiences, things you're grateful for. But it can also be very small things. Like you found a front row parking spot at the grocery store when it was raining. Or your kids took out the trash and the recycling without you having to remind them. Or you received a text from our friend too. Wish you luck on a presentation or your husband made dinner when you had to work late. Small little things that pack a big punch that make a big impact. In fact, probably there's more gold and finding the smaller things. Then the bigger things. Because obviously the bigger things, of course, you're going to be thankful for them. They're the big things there. They're very obvious. But when you can find goodness and things to be grateful for in the small things. You're going to find that there are so many things to be grateful for. And since we always start with gratitude, that's going to open up our mind to. Possibilities. It's going to help set an intention for a fantastic day. So we always start with gratitude, five things. I'm grateful for. Then we go to 10 dreams. I've achieved. This is, I guess we'll call this the affirmations part of the morning, 5, 10, 5. Because, like I've said. Affirmations. They didn't work for me. But, you know, what has worked for me? Every day, writing down. The 10 dreams I'm working on that practice has absolutely made a huge difference in my life. It's it's. It's like this visualization of who I want to be. And it helps me create the life I want to live. And what's really cool about it. Is it is scientifically backed. There are two reasons from a scientific standpoint that. Writing down the 10 dreams I achieved actually works. The first relates to the reticular activator system. The reticular activator system is the filter in our brain. That filters out information that is important. From information that is unimportant. How does it know which information is important to us? We tell it. Whatever we think about whatever we want to accomplish. We tell our brain on a subconscious level. That anything that will help us. Make that. Whatever we're working on a reality. That's important to us. So it will point out to us. All of the bits of information or the things that will actually help that. Create a reality. there are millions of bits of information that are bombarding us at all times, we simply could not handle. All of the information. That's where the reticular activator system comes in. Again, it filters out information. That's not important to us. That's exactly why if you bank with chase bank, you know where the chase bank. Branches are, you know, where the chase bank ATM's are. But if your friend comes to town and asks you, where is the closest us bank branch? You have no idea. Because it's not important to you. To know where that is. You have told your brain that that is useless information to you. So your brain automatically filters that out. Even though you drive by a us bank branch every single day on your way to work. It's also why. When I bought Mike a car for a Christmas gift. Yes, I was one of those crazy people. That you see on the commercials. At Christmas time that by their spouse, a car. Without them knowing it. Um, no, it was not snowing. No, there was no beautiful big red bow on top, but he needed a car and I knew he wouldn't go by one. So I bought him an infinity crossover to replace his old Audi wagon. And at the time, I didn't really know much about infinity cars. In fact, I really had never paid any attention to them. So I, by Mike, this infinity crossover as a surprise for Christmas. And low and behold, there are five other infinities on our same street. Now it's possible that all five of them were received as Christmas gifts. I don't actually think that was the case. I think that this is the reticular activator system in play. So that works with the 10 dreams I achieved because we are telling our brain what is important to us. These are the 10 things that we are working towards in our life. So on a subconscious level. Our reticular activator system is going to be looking for ways. All during the day. That can help us. Make those dreams a reality. We don't even have to consciously be aware of it. Our brain is working in the background that reticular activator system is working 24 hours. Every single day, too. present information to us. That we have told it is important to us. The second way that the 10 dreams I achieved works from a scientific perspective is this idea of neuro-plasticity. And effectively rewiring our brains through positive self-talk. The concept is. Beautifully described in Shad Helmstetter's book. What to say when you talk to yourself? All link the book in the show notes below. But his premises is this. That we can use positive. Self-talk. To rewire our brains and essentially create permanent change in our life. He, he puts together a three-step process for making this happen. Number one. a new idea must become physically wired into the brain. Number two. We have to understand how the brain gets wired and the role we play in the wiring process. Again, That's us telling the brain what's important to us. And that's also the brain listening to the way we talk to ourselves. The third is we need to implement a new word for word set of directions. This allows new programming to both the conscious and the subconscious mind. Helmstetter describes it this way. Quote, this is the me. I want you to create. Isn't that incredible. How this works in practice is we write down the same 10 dreams you're working on every single day. You write them as if they have already happened. And through this idea of neuroplasticity and rewiring our brains, we are telling our brains. This is the me. I want you to create. I love that. So for me. the 10 dreams I want to achieve is just a new way of self-talk and it takes the place of affirmations. And because it's scientifically backed. We have a much better chance of actually creating the life that we are aspiring to. Does that mean we'll accomplish all 10 of the goals. Maybe, maybe not. But that's not really the importance of the exercise. The importance of the exercise is sitting down every single day. And reminding yourself who you want to be and how you want to live. You write down the same 10 in the same order every single day. And you write them as if they are already a foregone conclusion that you're already living your life. That way. There is certainly value and figuring out what your own 10 dreams are. So I'm not going to share my list of the 10 dreams I achieved here. I want you to have the freedom to explore what's important to you and not be influenced by my 10 dreams. But if you want a little inspiration, I am happy to share my list with you. Just send me an email. And I will send out my list of 10 dreams that I'm currently working on. so we've got five things. I'm grateful for 10 dreams I achieved. And finally, the last five is five things I'm looking forward to today. This exercise is a beautiful way to pre frame your day for you to set the intention that you're going to have a great day. Are you gonna have a good day every day? You won't. But if we start our day by telling ourselves that there are things on our calendar that we have to look forward to. We're going to find what we're looking for. It's that idea that whatever we are focused on, we will see whatever we're looking for. We will find. So if we plan to have a good day, From the get-go. It's more likely that we're going to make it so. when we look at our calendar, there are things that. Absolutely makes sense that we're looking forward to lunch with a friend or dinner in a play to celebrate an anniversary or watching your daughter's last track meets. Those are easy, easy things that. When you look at your calendar in the morning. Those are easy to look forward to those. What gets trickier, but perhaps more impactful is when you look at your calendar in the morning and it's packed with things you don't want to do. Let's say. Um, you have a mammogram scheduled in the morning and a dentist appointment in the afternoon, and then to top it off, you have to go and renew your driver's license. Instead of looking at your calendar and already feeling defeated by what's on there, because there are several things that you just have no desire to do. Look at them, maybe write them this way. I am looking forward to my mammogram so that I can enjoy another 12 months of healthy living. Or I'm looking forward to my dentist appointment because I get my teeth cleaned. Thor. I'm looking forward to renewing my driver's license. So I don't have to do it again for another eight years and I can finally get rid of that terrible. Photo that I've been carrying around for the last eight years. But do you see how you can take whatever is on your calendar and reframe it in a more positive way? And then once you do that, you will find what you are looking for. So If there are things on your calendar that you're looking forward to today. You will absolutely get to the end of the day and realize that there were things that made you happy during the day. The key to the morning routine is to find something that will work for you. It can be the six steps that Hal Elrod describes it can be something much simpler. Like what I do. I drink whatever's left in the water bottle. I get up, I make my bed, I brush my teeth. I go for my walk. I finished with my morning, 5, 10, 5. My morning routine, depending on the day and really the length of my. My walk. Can vary anywhere from 20 minutes to about an hour to complete. The 5, 10, 5 portion. It's just about five minutes. So. Depending on how long my walk is. My morning routine can literally take less than a half an hour. It, but that time. Make such a difference in how I. Move through the day. Like I mentioned before, when I start with the morning routine, I'm calmer. I am less reactive and I'm just more prepared to create a better day. Every single day. I would encourage you to. Figure out what a morning routine looks like for you. And try it for 30 days. It doesn't have to be the same thing every day. And you can play around with different pieces so that you can figure out actually what works for you. And then this will be really interesting. Once you're in the habit. Of your morning routine. Maybe take a day off and see what that feels like. See, if you don't feel like your more frenetic in the morning or more reactionary. It's it's really incredible. How, when you have a morning routine that works for you. It will just start your day in a much, much better way. Sarah. I hope that implementing a morning routine in your life will help you find some of those moments of your day to just be that they will move you from this. Feeling that you're always running behind and that you can't quite get caught up to a calmer feeling of you. You can get through this day and. The day is not running you, that, that you can find that balance that you're looking for in your life. And for the rest of you, I hope that you take some time to figure out what a morning routine could look like for you and how it could help you. Have a better day, almost every day. And don't worry about what they say, whoever they are. You can get out of bed at whatever damn time you want. It doesn't have to be four 30 in the morning. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the School of Midlife podcast. I'd love it if you would take a moment and leave me a five star review so that we can spread the word to other mid-life women. Then join my mailing list. The link is in the show notes. And if you're ready to make midlife your best life, you can also find out more about how to work with me in the show notes. I'll see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session.